Bowie PDF Book from JFK247

‘Changes’ didn’t make the British charts this time
around but ‘it was the breakthrough’, says Anya
Wilson, who had to hawk it around the radio.
It was in the closing weeks of 1971, as the final
details of Ziggy’s mythical career were penciled in,
that the hero was given his own costume. The
aesthetic was half futuristic, half thrift-shop chic,
masterminded primarily by Freddie Buretti. Freddie
himself cut an exotic figure – with his high-waisted
peg-leg trousers, skinny shirts and, occasionally,
eighties-style oversize shades – but when he and
David cooked up their new look, they based the
designs on the Droogs, the futuristic teenage thugs
in Stanley Kubrick’s legendary, banned film version
of A Clockwork Orange. ‘But to lessen the image of
violence, I decided we should go for extremely
colourful and exotic material in place of the Droog
white cotton,’ says David. Freddie designed and did
most of the sewing on the skinny outfits, which were
fitted with a generous, Tudor-style codpiece, copied
from Britain’s popular Mod jeans, Lee Cooper. To
complete the look, David searched out cheap,
brightly coloured wrestling boots, custom-made by
Russell & Bromley, whose showroom was based in
North Bromley. These kind of boots could be seen
on television every Saturday afternoon on ITV’s
hugely popular, ludicrously choreographed wrestling
shows, and completed the aesthetic of rock ‘n’ roll
danger and Vaudeville camp.
It was Angie who encouraged the next phase of
David’s makeover; within a few days, the flowing
gold locks that David had worn throughout the